The Intel B560 Motherboard Overview: 30+ Budget Models Starting from $75
by Gavin Bonshor on March 29, 2021 7:00 AM ESTBiostarB560GTQ
At the time of writing, Biostar has announced one B560 model designed for use with both Intel's 11th and 10th generation processors. The Biostar B560GTQ is a micro-ATX model with a very different aesthetic to everything else currently available on B560. It is using a primarily black PCB, with light blue and grey accented patterning. This stretches across the rear panel cover too and with the images we have available, it is hard to tell if the board includes integrated RGB LEDs or whether the chipset LEDs are blue only. Biostar is also advertising the B560GTQ as being equipped with a 12-phase power delivery, although the technical specifications of this are unknown.
Dominating the majority of the lower half of the board is the PCIe slots, with two full-length PCIe slots operating at PCIe 4.0 x16 and PCIe 3.0 x4, with a single PCIe 3.0 x1 slot sandwiched between them. For storage, the board includes one PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slot, with six SATA ports with support for RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 arrays. Biostar also includes a Key-E M.2 slot for users to install its own Wi-Fi 6 wireless interface. In the top-right corner is four memory slots, which include support for up to DDR4-4000 and with a maximum capacity of 128 GB.
The rear panel includes one USB 3.2 G2x2 Type-C, five USB 3.2 G1 Type-A, and two USB 2.0 ports. Despite the rear panel image showing an antenna with Wi-Fi capability, the B560GTQ does not come with any wireless networking and will require users to use its own. Other connectivity includes one DisplayPort, one HDMI, and one DVI-D video output, with a PS/2 combo port for legacy peripherals. The B560GTQ has three 3.5 mm audio jacks which are powered by a Realtek ALC1220 HD audio codec and includea single Ethernet port driven by a Realtek RTL8125B 2.5 GbE controller.
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FriendlySeaCow - Monday, March 29, 2021 - link
The MSI MPG B560I Gaming Edge Wi-Fi has been announced and its features fully released, so you can update that page. Incidentally, there's also a typo in the MSI table, where you have "ATX" instead of "ITX" under the Size Column for the B560I.Looks like a really nice board: https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/MPG-B560I-GAMING-E...
Jorgp2 - Monday, March 29, 2021 - link
Why didn't they enable the full 8 sata ports for this chipset, X299 is dead anyway.Linustechtips12#6900xt - Thursday, April 8, 2021 - link
because who uses 8 freaking sata ports at a time, i think the MAX I've ever used is 4Mr Perfect - Monday, March 29, 2021 - link
Nice round up. Any chance you'll do something similar for H570? They don't seem to cost much more, but have some additional chipset features.Scour - Monday, March 29, 2021 - link
B560 also with 6x SATA, PCIe 4.0 and also on ATX-boards, sound good for me.sheltem - Monday, March 29, 2021 - link
According to this Reddit post, the Asrock B560 ITX has pretty good VRM's:https://www.reddit.com/r/intel/comments/lao3ym/z59...
BrokenCrayons - Monday, March 29, 2021 - link
Finally some decently priced motherboards are getting attention they deserve! I'm really happy to see and read about hardware in a price segment I would actually buy and use.evilpaul666 - Monday, March 29, 2021 - link
The 10/11 series would be so much more interesting if it had ECC support.jrbales@outlook.com - Monday, March 29, 2021 - link
I'm in the process of building a new system for my sister. Bought the ASUS Prime B560M-A at a price competitive with the B460 boards. A very nice mATX board that was nice to work with. One observation and one question. I bought the optional Intel WIFI card & antenna kit to use with the WIFI bracket. On the plus side, it works great and I didn't have to run ethernet cable across the room I was building it in. The negative is that the WIFI bracket has to be attached to the motherboard, using really tiny screws from the rear of the board. That probably took the longest thing in the build as I'd have to try to balance the MB, keep the bracket in place over the holes and the card inserted in the slot, while keeping the tiny screws on the screwdriver long enough to screw in. Now for the question. It involves the first M.2 slot, above the GPU. It's PCIE 4.0. According to everything printed by ASUS, if you use a 10th generation CPU, the slot is disabled, leaving only the second M.2 beneath the GPU. I understand the part about needing an 11th gen CPU to get PCIE 4, but shouldn't the first slot support a PCIE 3.0 M.2 SSD? I'm used to these slots being backward compatible and on my AMD X570 board, you can use either PCIE 3 or 4 SSDs in both slots. Does anyone knows if the B56s0 slot 1 is backward compatible?mobilefrenzy - Tuesday, March 30, 2021 - link
M.2 Slot 1 on B560 and Z590 mobos don't work with 10th gen CPUs, as they don't have the additional PCIe lanes to enable them.